Breathless and Cold
by ncfan
Summary: Amidst the blood, the pain, the destruction and the confusion, Ishida realizes at the end that he has never been more wrong in his life.


**Characters:** Ishida, Orihime, with a side of Ichigo and Ulquiorra.**  
Pairings:** onesided IchiHime, IshiHime.**  
Warning/Spoilers:** Spoilers for chapters 343-354.**  
Author's Note:** Quotes have been taken from chapters: 344, 346, 348, 352 and 353. This can act as a companion to _Lux ex Tenebris_, and references an event in _Kage no Tsuki_. For the record, "Cuarto" is the literal Spanish term for "fourth". Oh yeah, and Orihime is, in my opinion, probably having a major guilt trip back in Hueco Mundo, considering everything that's happened, so I communicated that to here.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach.

* * *

When he finds her again, he's relieved to see that she is, outwardly, unharmed, though he holds his suspicions about her ripped clothing, split fingernails and the flecks of crimson blood on the white cuffs of her sleeves. Ishida doesn't voice those suspicions; there is a time and a place for everything, and that is neither the time nor the place.

Ichigo is busy with the Cuarto Espada; they are a clash of giants in reiatsu, and it's all Ishida can do not to go slightly paler than he already is at the reiatsu swirling in the air, almost tangible in its density. He marvels that Orihime seems so unaffected by what's happening around her; there is a truly agonized expression on her face, but she is un-cowed by the reiatsu.

More than unaffected. She seems…detached. Ishida supposes it is just be a symptom of shock at what has just happened (the ear-shattering explosion, Yammy Riyalgo shouting at the top of his lungs and falling several stories), and that she'll recover in a few minutes.

Ichigo tells Ishida, in a dangerously calm voice, to protect Orihime before he and Ulquiorra shoot out through the hole in the smooth white wall nearby.

"I'm entrusting Inoue to you." Ichigo's voice is even toned and neutral, and there's something deeper in it, a fear that Ishida picks up on and recognizes immediately; he knows that fear, because he's felt it himself, ever since learning that Orihime was kidnapped by the Espada. "If her Rikka becomes unable to block my reiatsu, protect her with your body."

Ishida's tone is just as neutral, with the same undertones, just like Ichigo's. "I planned on that. I didn't need you to say anything." _What did you think I came up here to do? _Ishida wants to scream at Ichigo, suddenly irrationally furious. _Not cover your rear, if that's what you're thinking. _

His orange-haired comrade looks back at him and smirks. Their eyes meet, brown to blue, and a sharp understanding goes through. _Do what you have to_, Ichigo seems to say to him. _Just don't let her die. And don't die either, Ishida._

Then, they are gone, Ichigo and Ulquiorra both, within flashing moments that seem so surreal as to be dreamlike.

They are left alone, Ishida, Orihime, and the holes in the wall and the floor.

For a moment, Ishida just stares at the hole in the wall where Ichigo disappeared from. It was a painfully short reunion.

Then, he remembers Orihime. She still sits, bowed on her knees, hands bracing on her legs to keep from swaying side to side.

With three swift strides, Ishida is beside her. "Are you hurt?" he asks quietly, desperately trying to keep the urgency he fears will give himself away out of his voice as he puts a hand under the crook of her elbow with the intent of helping her to her feet.

"No." Orihime shakes him off, stands on her own, whispers her response and does not smile.

Ishida feels his heart sink quicker and lower than the barometric pressure during a storm as Orihime staggers towards the hole in the wall.

.

_There's a hole…in the sky, _Ishida thinks, awestruck and inexplicably afraid. _That sky…really was a fake, then?_

That is where Ichigo and Ulquiorra have gone.

Then, Ishida turns his attention back to Orihime.

It's not that Orihime has never been far from Ishida's thoughts. It's that she's never left his thoughts at all. When he hasn't been fighting for his life, struggling to stay conscious and shrieking at Kurotsuchi Mayuri, Orihime has been all Ishida's scrambled thoughts have been able to grasp.

Mostly thoughts of worry, of pain, of wondering _why on Earth she didn't say anything to anyone_, of the fears that Ishida has never wanted to name. Because Orihime had left without a word to anyone, and it hurt him to know that she had somehow become so isolated without him even noticing.

Because, if Ishida is honest with himself, Orihime means the world to him, regardless of the feelings for Ichigo he knows she has, and thinking of her gone is the most terrifying thing he has ever confronted in his life.

"Inoue-san…" His voice is softer than he intended, barely loud enough to reach her ears, and Ishida's courage to speak dies in his throat when she casts her eyes on him.

Ishida is willing to admit that when it comes to women, Orihime in particular, he does have the capacity and at times the tendency to become painfully shy.

_I'm glad she's okay_, Ishida thinks, his inner voice shaking on the syllables of "glad" and "okay". He tries to speak again, but fails miserably when her eyes on him momentarily makes his cheeks burn and flush a brilliant shade of scarlet. _No…I shouldn't say anything yet._

"It's okay. Kurosaki will win." Ishida injects every bit of confidence in his being into the five words and manages to get Orihime to smile uncertainly back at him. He has always known what to say to make her feel better.

But still, Ishida does worry. _I've said it. So don't make a liar out of me, Kurosaki. Don't let her down._

For the first time, Ishida gets a good look at Orihime, _really_ looks at her, and starts to feel the seeds of worry and doubt settle in his stomach.

Her face is as chalk white as the clothes she wears. There is almost a sallow hint in her cheeks, and there are huge dark purple spots under her eyes like bruises, giving Ishida the impression that Orihime has not slept well in days.

Orihime's thin, slender shoulders tremble almost unnoticeably—it's not cold there, but tremble they do—and her large eyes are huge in her face, a troubling quality Ishida doesn't quite recognize rooted deep in there.

Ishida redoubles his prayers for Ichigo to win.

.

"STOPPPP!" Her anguished scream splits the night sky, rising from high to low to high again, a howl of madness and a shriek of despair colliding and collapsing in spectacular fashion.

Ishida doesn't scream like Orihime does, but that is only because the sight he sees renders him incapable of speech.

_Kurosaki…_ A pair of glazed brown eyes like marbles stare down at them, and Ishida thinks it's the most horrifying sight he's ever seen.

.

When Ishida takes Ulquiorra on, he doesn't think he can win. He doesn't even think he'll be able to survive for very long, though Ishida isn't thinking very hard about life and death at that point. He just watched the Espada put a hole three times the size of his fist through one of his closest friend's chest.

Ishida takes Ulquiorra on for three reasons.

One, he needs to give Orihime time to see if anything can be done for Ichigo.

Two, for Ichigo's sake, Ishida will at least try to finish what the substitute Shinigami started. A friend would do nothing less.

Three, Ulquiorra made Orihime scream. And that may have been the worst offense of all.

The only hope Ishida has left is that Orihime can and will do something that will…_fix _Ichigo. But that hope is a weak, dying one at best. When Ishida casts a glance at Ichigo's prone body, the hole glares back at him, while Ichigo's eyes are open, glazed, unfocused, unseeing.

Ishida does not say anything to Orihime, but he fears that Ichigo is dead.

.

_I'm not an archer anymore_. That's the first thought that crosses Ishida's mind when he realizes the severity of his wound. Oddly, the thought doesn't bother him quite as much as it would have a year, a month, a week or even a day ago, but maybe that's just because he's come more to terms with what he can and can't change in the past five minutes.

At first, he thinks that the reason he is bleeding so much from his left arm is that Ulquiorra has lacerated his wrist. Than Ishida sees a bloody hand lying on the ground beside him, and he realizes that it is his.

The syringe flies into his remaining hand, a powerful cocktail of anesthetics and blood coagulants. Ishida rams the syringe into a vein high up on his left arm, far above the elbow as he falls back, but it isn't quite quick enough to prevent the pint of blood from splattering to the ground as he lands besides Orihime.

The shock isn't quite as bad as Ishida had expected, but he knows he's in trouble. His head is spinning and he keels dangerously from side to side. His eyesight blurs for a moment, and Ishida prays that the blood coagulants will take effect before he bleeds out entirely. However slight the weight of his left hand must have been, the sudden loss of it puts him off-balance, leaning to one side.

"…I-Ishida-kun…?" Orihime's voice trembles uncontrollably as her wild eyes flick from his face to the mangled stump of his wrist—Ulquiorra's cut was far from clean—and back to his face again.

Orihime looks one step away from a nervous collapse. Her eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, swollen with crying, and her frazzled hair clings in graceless tendrils to her wet cheeks.

Ishida focuses his eyes on her. He tells her not to worry, before flipping out a Seele Schneider. He's left-handed to begin with, and combined with the dangerous amount of blood he's already lost he can't even clench it firmly in his right hand.

"I leave Kurosaki to you." His voice is flat and grim as the freakish bat-like creature Ulquiorra has become starts towards him again. "Inoue-san."

The last thing Ishida hears before jumping back into the fray is Orihime screaming his name at the top of her lungs, despair and panic growing ever more overwhelming.

His reflexes are slowed, and he can't even run in a straight line anymore. He can't dodge when Ulquiorra fires a Cero at him.

As Ishida is sent flying back by the force of the attack, he wonders why there isn't a hole in his chest, and it's not until his head hits the ground with bone-breaking force that Ishida starts remembering his priorities.

He's dazed, and can only half see Ulquiorra advancing pitilessly on him. A golden shield, courtesy of Orihime, materializes but it is easily smashed by one whip of Ulquiorra's tail.

"Help me, Kurosaki-kun!" Ishida can hear her screaming, and there's no hope left in her voice. The desolate timbre reaches in and tears his heart.

_Get up! _His inner voice sounds suspiciously like Ryuuken as it screams at him. _You have to get up! What do you think will happen to her if you fall?_

_Move. Move. _But his body won't listen to his desperate pleas, finally informing Ishida of how far is too far.

The only thing that saves him is the creature Ichigo's somehow morphed into standing up and attacking Ulquiorra.

.

One swing from Ichigo's zanpakuto sends rubble from the dome flying, dust clouds puffing up as they fall.

Ishida is in a place that isn't affected, and he's able to cling to the floor as the storm flies over his head, but his chest seizes as he sees something go flying past in a blur of white and orange.

"Inoue-san!" Ishida grabs the back of her shirt and pulls her towards him just before she can go flying off of the dome. It's difficult, considering how Orihime, though by no means heavy, doesn't weight a great deal less than he does. Once they're side by side, Ishida pulls his arm around her quaking shoulders.

Their eyes meet. Orihime's face is a tapestry of confusion and fear. "What's happened to him?" she screams over the shrieking wind. "What's going on?"

"I don't know," Ishida answers, trying to catch sight of Ichigo and Ulquiorra in all the chaos and flying debris. "Let's just stay here until it's over."

"I second that," Orihime agrees fervently.

As the storm continues to whip and gnaw at them, Ishida pulls her closer, and Orihime doesn't try to pull away. Her fingers cling to the cloth of his shirt, and Ishida's skin tingles beneath.

.

When Ichigo defeats Ulquiorra and stands poised to mutilate his lifeless corpse, Ishida commits his second foolhardy action of the night.

The necessity of having to try and stop Ichigo from mutilating a corpse confirms two things for Ishida. One, hitting the ground so hard when Ulquiorra fired a Cero at him did not leave him with a concussion, and two, Ichigo isn't himself.

"That's enough, Kurosaki." Ishida tries to talk reason into his friend, tries to keep him from committing to that gruesome act. "It's finished. He's an enemy, but there's no need to carve up his corpse. So that's enough, Kurosaki."

Ichigo doesn't seem to hear. He lets out a low, guttural, inhuman growl, and starts to strain against Ishida's wrist on his sword hand.

"Can't you hear me, Kurosaki?" Ishida starts to lose his temper, bit by bit, disbelieving that Ichigo actually wants to desecrate a corpse. "I'm telling you to stop. If you do that, you won't truly be human anymore." Ichigo's zanpakuto inches ever closer to Ulquiorra's unmoving throat. "KUROSAKI!"

At first, Ishida only thinks Ichigo has punched him. It doesn't hurt enough to be anything more serious, he thinks, and though their arguments have never come to physical blows before, it does seem characteristic of Ichigo. If anything, being punched in the gut serves to reassure Ishida that Ichigo's still himself.

It takes Ishida a grand total of five seconds to realize that the anesthetics he has taken have made him drastically underestimate the severity of his injury and that there is a zanpakuto running through his belly and out through his back.

There's a good reason Orihime's screams are even more frantic than before.

As Ichigo flings him from him the way a dog would toss a rag doll, Ishida's blue eyes open wide and he thinks that he never expected this from Ichigo, and as hitting the ground after Ulquiorra blasted him did, his head smashing against the hard white stone brings him back to reality.

It's not Ichigo he's looking at. It's whatever inner demon/Hollow has taken a hold of him. Ishida knows better than to blame this on Ichigo and will _never_ blame this on Ichigo.

The thing in Ichigo's skin advances menacingly on him. A ball of light appears between the cattle-like horns of the Hollow mask.

For the first time, Ishida believes that he will die that night, and realizes that he had expected his killer to be Ulquiorra, not some creature animating Ichigo's body.

Ishida finds Orihime with his eyes. She's not looking at him, and Ishida doubts he could raise his voice high enough to get her attention. She has stumbled to her feet, staring at Ichigo, screaming at him, trying to get him to stop what he's doing; Ishida appreciates her efforts, but knows it's all in vain.

_Always Kurosaki_, he thinks, with sadness, but only a minimum of resentment.

Ishida has one regret.

_There were so many words on the tip of my tongue. Words I wanted to say, but never did._

_I kept telling myself, "When this is all over."_

_I told myself, "Now's not a good time", "There will be a better time later."_

_Now, I realize that the best time to say something to her was when I said nothing at all._

Ishida can hardly believe it when Ulquiorra rises from the grave to hack off one of Ichigo's horns.

.

Ichigo, the _real_ Ichigo, gapes at him with nothing short of horror on his face.

"That wound…" Ichigo whispers, looking so much younger than he's supposed to, a horror swirling in his eyes "…Did I do that?" he asked hoarsely.

The sardonic smirk on Ishida's face is meant to convey to Ichigo that he doesn't blame him. Ichigo's face is stamped all over with confusion and guilt, and Ishida finds he feels intensely sorry for him.

Enough so that he doesn't answer the question.

.

There is ash breaking away from Ulquiorra's failing body. Ishida isn't like Ichigo and Orihime, filled with mixed feelings and indecision over what's happening to him. Ishida's just relieved that it's over. He can understand why they feel that way, though. It seems so…anticlimactic.

"Do I frighten you, girl?" Ulquiorra stretches out a claw-like hand towards her, and the blood roars in Ishida's ears, because he thinks Ulquiorra's going to try and fire off one last attack before he dies. He tries to get up, but the wound won't let him and Ishida falls back to the ground with a small cry of pain.

Wait…There's no build up in reiatsu. Ishida realizes Ulquiorra isn't going to attack, and turns his attention on Orihime, wondering what she will do.

Orihime hesitates for a moment, her lip trembling. Then, she gives her answer.

"No." Her voice is quavering, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "You don't."

The answer floors Ishida. _She's…forgiven him? _Ishida can't pretend to understand the feelings inside of her that allow Orihime to forgive Ulquiorra after all she's done, but he can't condemn her. Forgiveness will make the road to healing that much quicker.

A strange look comes over Ulquiorra's face as he stares at Orihime. "I see," he murmurs, a tone in his voice that Ishida knows he will never recognize.

Orihime tries to take his hand, but it crumbles to ash before their fingers can touch. Orihime keeps trying to grab long after the ashes have floated away on a night desert breeze.

Ishida watches as Ulquiorra crumbles to ash. He doesn't die the same way most Hollows do, screaming defiance and spitting curses at the sky. Instead, he chooses to die with the same sort of dignity a Shinigami would adopt.

His limbs are tingling; he's becoming increasingly lightheaded, and the world's going dark. Up to that point, Ishida can only take breaths in short, shallow gasps, and now, he can't take breath at all.

Ichigo looking back at him, his eyes widening in panic, are the last thing Ishida sees before he passes out.

.

"Damn it, damn it!"

"Ishida-kun, stay awake!"

He's hearing the voices as if through a grainy filter. Ishida tries to open his eyes but can't; they feel as if they've been weighted down with sandbags.

_She's calling_. The thought would make Ishida smile if he could still work the muscles in his mouth.

_I'm sorry, Inoue-san. I'm not like Kurosaki; I'm not sure I'll be able to answer._

_But if you want me to, I'll try._

.

"I think he's coming around, Inoue."

When Ishida starts to come to, he's lying on his back, and two pairs of brown eyes are barely inches from his face.

Orihime and Ichigo are leaning so close over Ishida's face that if they were any closer, their noses would be in contact with his skin. Ichigo's face is brutally pale, Orihime's lip trembling.

When Ichigo's speaks up, his voice cracks and squeaks like a rusty hinge. "You bastard! Why'd you have to go and pass out? We both thought you were dead, and I about never got Inoue to stop crying!"

There's a fresh coat of tears on Orihime's face, and Ishida croaks, "I'm alright, Inoue-san," because he can't stand to see her cry, even though it's probably the most blatant lie he's ever said in his life. Ishida becomes aware of a soft pressure on his right hand; Orihime's hanging on to his hand for dear life as though she thinks that if she lets go, Ishida will fade to ash as Ulquiorra had.

Ichigo notices and smiles slightly.

Ishida refuses to let Ichigo have the last word. "It's called blood loss, Kurosaki," Ishida retorts, glaring at him with his brow drawn. "You should try it sometime."

"I'll pass." Ichigo's face sobers. "Look, I'm sorry. I swear I didn't mean to—"

"It's not your fault, Kurosaki!" Ishida snaps, trying to sit up and then falling back with a groan. "I'm sure there's a fight somewhere you need to be getting to, so get a move on!" His eyes narrow. "We'll talk later."

Ichigo nods, and puts a hand on Orihime's shoulder. "Will you be alright?" he murmurs to her.

"I…I think so," Orihime stammers.

"'Kay. I guess now I've got to ask you to take care of him, instead of the other way around."

Ichigo gets to his feet and starts to walk towards the hole in the dome he came from. He turns around, and makes eye contact with Ishida. His face is uncharacteristically serious. "Get better, Ishida."

"Get moving, Kurosaki!"

.

As Orihime is healing Ishida, he finally realizes why he had misgivings about whether she was alright when he sees her crying.

_You were relieved to find her uninjured, because what terrified you more than anything was what you would find when you finally found her. The thing keeping you awake at night was the fear that when you found Inoue-san, she'd be injured or even dead._

_You were so relieved when she wasn't hurt that you managed to overlook something else._

_She's not whole. You don't know what's happened to Inoue-san, but she's not whole anymore._

_You didn't ask her if she was okay, because even when you were so sure she was alright, you were afraid of how she would answer._

_And she's not okay. She's about as far from okay as anyone can get._

Ishida realizes that he has never been more wrong about anything in his life, and a sharp stab of guilt comes through him when he thinks that he never noticed how close Orihime was to a nervous breakdown. He should never have acquiesced to her request to take her to the top of the dome, and wouldn't have if he had known how it would affect her.

Orihime seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her shoulders quake like a palm tree in a thunderstorm, as if she suffers under the weight of the world, and she might as well, too.

Orihime finishes healing him soon enough. She crying hard, because Ishida has just told her that Rukia's still alive and Sado most likely is as well, and she's clearly relieved that no one had to die to rescue her.

Ishida struggles to get on his knees beside her, still dizzy from blood loss, and puts his hand on her shoulder. As ever, he knows exactly what to say to try to make her feel better.

"You know everything's going to be alright, don't you, Inoue-san?"

Tears continue to roll down her face even as Orihime smiles. It isn't a real smile, but the fact that she's feeling well enough to try to smile even though she doesn't feel much like smiling.

They stand up. "Come on," Ishida gestures towards the hole Ichigo disappeared down. "We'd better get down there."

Orihime nods. Her face pales slightly. "Um, Ishida-kun?"

Before Ishida knows what's happening, small fingers clench the front of his shirt as Orihime breaks down into a fresh crying fit as her head presses against the skin over his heart. "I'm sorry," she sobs. "I'm sorry you all had to come here."

There's no talking to her when she's like this.

Ishida puts his hands around her shoulders, rests his cheek against her hair. At that point, all Ishida wants is to live long enough to see her smile, really smile again.


End file.
